Wanted Dead by Kenneth Cook Page B

said Hatton at last.
    â€œNo, Jim. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”
    â€œThen where’ve you been the last month?”
    â€œJust knockin’ around, doin’ a bit of work on me own.”
    Hatton stared at the boy. He said nothing for a moment and then he turned to the crowd.
    â€œWe’re going to have a trial here,” he announced: “We’re going to try Johnny Cabel for treachery. If he’s found guilty we’re going to hang him.” There was a stir in the crowd and Riley became aware that the man standing next to him, a stout man, was very red in the face and was breathing heavily. Riley hoped he wasn’t going to be sick.
    â€œThese men,” continued Hatton, gesturing with a revolver at his followers, “are going to be the jury. I’m going to be the judge. You—” he waved his revolver generally at the crowd—“you’re the audience and can see fair play.”
    The man had no sense of humour, thought Riley.
    Hatton leaned back against the bar and let the barrels of his revolvers point to the ground.
    â€œNow you all know, or you ought to know that Johnny Cabel here was one of us.” Riley took that to mean that Cabel had been a member of the gang. Why was the bushranger going through this pantomime, he wondered. It looked as though he was simply trying to justify himself in front of the old man, or the crowd, or both.
    â€œAnd you all know what happened up on Lightning Fork Ridge. We were ambushed by a bunch of Traps.”
    That was flattering, thought Riley.
    â€œWe drove the dingoes off, as we always will,” said Hatton, “but they killed Mick Ramsden.”
    So that was the man’s name. First the memory of having seen him by the fire, and now learning his name, Riley felt as though the man he had killed was being created in his memory. He shook his head to clear the thought away.
    â€œNow we have reason to believe that Johnny Cabel, here, told those Traps where we were.”
    â€œBut he didn’t,” cried Jane — “he didn’t, he didn’t.”
    Hatton ignored her.
    â€œNow we admit we could be wrong about that.”
    You don’t, you liar, thought Riley.
    â€œAnd that’s why we’re holding this trial. We want to make sure.” A half-remembered quotation came to Riley’s mind. “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ to admit you might be wrong.” Who said that? Oliver Cromwell wasn’t it? Not exactly a tolerant man either. Riley wondered whether Cromwell had been prompted by a sentiment similar to Hatton’s. He probably was. And the expression of his tolerance was likely to be much the same. Would they really hang the boy? And what was the old man thinking about all this? He was still leaning there motionless. There was something purely affected about that immobility.
    â€œNow, Johnny,” said Hatton, turning to the boy who was now standing upright, not clinging to his father, but very close to him. “You say you didn’t set the Traps on us?”
    â€œNo. I didn’t,” said John, with just a touch of defiance.
    â€œYou didn’t tell anybody where Lightning Fork
plant
was?”
    â€œNo I didn’t, Jim. Honest, Jim I didn’t. I don’t know why you think I did.”
    Hatton turned again to the crowd.
    â€œNow you all heard that. Johnny here says he never set the Traps on, us, right?”
    He turned again to John Cabel.
    â€œNow when did you first hear about this business up on the Ridge?”
    â€œAw, I dunno, Jim. A week or two after it happened. Heard some fellers talking about it out at Rushton’s shanty. Something in the papers about it they said.”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Hatton, talking to the crowd at large again: “There was something in the papers about it. Lies they were. There was a whole bunch of troopers up there.”
    Riley hadn’t known he’d made the